Stalking Jack The Ripper by Kerri Maniscalco #BookReview

Seventeen-year-old Audrey Rose Wadsworth was born a lord’s daughter, with a life of wealth and privilege stretched out before her. But between the social teas and silk dress fittings, she leads a forbidden secret life.

Against her stern father’s wishes and society’s expectations, Audrey often slips away to her uncle’s laboratory to study the gruesome practice of forensic medicine. When her work on a string of savagely killed corpses drags Audrey into the investigation of a serial murderer, her search for answers brings her close to her own sheltered world.

The story’s shocking twists and turns will make this dazzling debut from author Kerri Maniscalco impossible to forget.

I was in the mood for reading some historical fiction and when I saw this novel about Jack The Ripper, well how could I resist? I’m also a big fan of the cover and reading the story I can say that the woman on the cover fits the story perfectly, she even made it easier for me to imagine Audrey Rose. 

There’s A LOT that I liked about this novel. First of all I loved how the author was not afraid to dive right into the story. The novel opens with an autopsy in Audrey Rose’s uncle Jonathan’s laboratory and just reading that first line about the moment before making the incision was enough to know that I was really going to enjoy the story and writing. The author inserted real photos of that period which gave the story a sense of authenticity, and afterwards I read in the afterword also a number of details about the Jack The Ripper murders that she tried to replicate in the story as well. 

I also loved how Audrey Rose didn’t want to fold to the Victorian standard expectations for a woman. I loved her fascination for the dead and how she’s adamant that she’s just as capable to perform a postmortem as a man. She has to walk a fine line, on the one hand she has to have tea parties and if she wants to wed soon she needs to be on her best behaviour, but on the other hand she sneaks away to assist her uncle, she doesn’t shy away from looking at Jack The Ripper’s havoc on his victims, she isn’t afraid to tell her mind and as an act of defiance further along she wears her riding gear.. when she’s not riding. She’s a perfect heroine and the exact character this novel needed!       

I’d say she’s the star of the show but that’s a lie because she has to share first place with Thomas, another student of her uncle. Thomas has mad deductions skills, I was seriously in awe and I don’t know if I loved the murder mystery or the courting going on between Audrey Rose and Thomas most. I’m tempted to go for the latter. The flirting (on a Victorian level) was so good and I loved Thomas’s pursuit and his little remarks. Apart from that they were also great as a detective duo and I think it’s no coincidence that Thomas addressing her often as Wadsworth always gave me major Sherlock and Watson vibes.

Last but not least, the story is of course about Jack The Ripper. Audrey Rose and her entourage are called upon and soon enough it doesn’t let her go. There are a few possible suspects but I figured out who Jack The Ripper was very soon, without any real grounds I admit but I still knew I had to be right on this and I was. Authors always follow the same formula and I have cracked that formula so it takes a lot more than this to surprise me, although she did try to create some doubt. While I knew who I didn’t completely understand the why though and finding out left me a little speechless. Now I wonder about the real Jack The Ripper even more!

Stalking Jack The Ripper is an original young adult novel with a great Jack The Ripper twist. I neither expected the morbid details nor the romance but I loved both and I do hope to read the next in the series in the future.

I bought a paperback of this novel. This is my honest opinion.

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Hold Back The Stars by Katie Khan #BookReview

Carys and Max have ninety minutes of air left. None of this was supposed to happen.

Adrift in space with nothing to hold on to but each other, Carys and Max can’t help but look back at the world they left behind. A world whose rules they couldn’t submit to, a place where they never really belonged; a home they’re determined to get back to because they’ve come too far to lose each other now.

Hold Back the Stars is a love story like no other.

Why oh why didn’t I read this sooner? Another one of my backlist and what a winner. Hold Back The Stars is a novel set in an utopian world. It’s a mix of romance, new adult genre with a sci-fi background (I don’t even have a category for that). Not really my kind of read right? Well things can change :-).

On the one hand Carys and Max are floating in space and trying everything they can to get back to the capsule. Time is ticking away and each chapter shows how many more minutes of oxygen they still have left.

In alternating chapters the author took me back to the beginning, where Carys and Max met. Carys drove shuttles and Max was working in his parents supermarket while also answering all sorts of questions about cooking as a chef. How Max became an astronaut and ended up in space was a mystery to me but the story was cleverly constructed and it actually made some kind of sense.

Max and Carys were in their early twenties when they fall in love. The thing is, in this utopian world the story is set in, they want the people to develop their individuality so therefore you can only become a couple at the age of 35. Yep the taste of forbidden love is the best.

I was completely on board with this new world, the rules, the different voivoids and the rotations to other voivoids every couple of years until it was time to settle down.

The author is a star (yes I couldn’t not say it) and I can’t believe it’s her first novel. There are several topics inserted into the story that are stepping stones for contemplation, about family issues and personal choices, and of course if a real utopia can exist.

The ending has everything you want and the lead up to it lets the reader take a peek at other possible scenarios how it could have played out. Cari’s life without Max, or Max’s life without Cari,.. you’ll have to see in the end what the scenario is that the author picked. If you ask me then she picked the right one but it goes straight through the heart!

This novel had the perfect mix and was a joy to read. Forbidden love has never felt so good. Also what an absolutely beautiful quote is this:

“The thing about first love, Cari, is that it breaks you. It changes everything about who you are for the next person.”

Hold Back The Stars was an amazing story with so much to give. At first I was hung up on their past lives more but in the end you know them so well and it catches up and I was hanging on to those moments in space and hoping so much for a miracle.

I’m definitely adding her other novel, The Light Between Us, to my readlist!

Oh by the way, good to know that Hold Back the Stars is in the works at studio Lionsgate, to be directed by Justin Baldoni (Five Feet Apart) from a screenplay by Christy Hall (I Am Not Okay With This), produced by Shawn Levy and Dan Cohen (Strange Things and Arrival).

There’s work to do for some of you I believe, you better read the novel before you watch the movie! It’s only 1.99p at the moment btw.

I bought a paperback copy of this novel. This is my honest opinion.

Lovely Vicious (book 1) by Sara Wolf #BookReview

Seventeen-year-old Isis Blake hasn’t fallen in love in three years, nine weeks, and five days, and after what happened last time, she intends to keep it that way. Since then she’s lost eighty-five pounds, gotten four streaks of purple in her hair, and moved to Buttcrack-of-Nowhere, Ohio, to help her mom escape a bad relationship.

All the girls in her new school want one thing—Jack Hunter, the Ice Prince of East Summit High. Hot as an Armani ad, smart enough to get into Yale, and colder than the Arctic, Jack Hunter’s never gone out with anyone. Sure, people have seen him downtown with beautiful women, but he’s never given high school girls the time of day. Until Isis punches him in the face.

Jack’s met his match. Suddenly everything is a game.

The goal: Make the other beg for mercy.

The game board: East Summit High.

The reward: Something neither of them expected.

/

Novel number 300-something of my backlist and I’m ashamed to say I actually chose it as my next read because I confused it with another novel that I’d been meaning to read and clearly don’t have in my library (Truly Devious btw) Vicious, devious, you can see how got it mixed up right? Another funny thing about this novel is that Sara Wolf made it into a trilogy and the new title of this book is actually Love Me Never. Honestly if I’d have seen that title with that new cover I’d not have touched it. I know it’s one of my flaws and I’m happy I was oblivious because it turned out not such a bad read. I read it in a day!

What I enjoyed most of all about this novel were all the words and comments that came out of Isis Blake’s mouth. The writing style – the snide remarks especially – was very entertaining and it really made me smile a lot.

Isis makes an enemy of Jack Hunter, the school’s heart throb because he’s not at all interested when the friend she just made, Kayla, throws herself at his feet at a party and he makes that painfully clear. Isis doesn’t stand for it and demands an apology for the way he treated her but he isn’t giving in. She steps it up and then his retaliation made my heart pitter patter but unfortunately I found the next moves of Isis taking it quite (too) far. The romance is definitely not instant although you can feel there’s something between them.

Underneath this confident, battle-armour Isis there’s another side of her that left her wounded. There are layers to both Isis and Jack which bring more serious themes to the story and in the end they really pulled at my heartstrings. It ends with a cliffhanger so be aware that it’ll leave you wanting to know more. Overall, I have absolutely no regrets picking this one up, even when it wasn’t my intention.

I bought an ecopy of this novel. This is my honest opinion.

Here’s To Us by Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera #BookReview

From the creator of 13 Reasons Why, What If It’s Us is soon to be a feature film!

Ben survived freshman year of college, but he’s feeling more stuck than ever. His classes are a slog, his part-time job working with his father is even worse, and his best friend Dylan’s been acting weird for weeks. Ben’s only real bright spot is his writing partner Mario, who’s been giving him a lot of Spanish lessons and even more kisses. Mario’s big Hollywood dreams make Ben start to dream bigger—and the choices he makes now could be the key to reshaping his future. So why can’t he stop thinking about a certain boy from his past?

Arthur is back in New York City for the first time in two years, ready to take the theater world by a storm as the world’s best . . . intern to the assistant of an off-off-Broadway director. Of course, it sucks to be spending the summer apart from his sweet, reliable boyfriend, Mikey, but he knows their relationship is strong enough to weather the distance. Which is why it’s no big deal when his ex-boyfriend Ben stumbles back into the picture. And it’s definitely fine that Ben’s blissfully happy with some mystery boy. First loves are special, but it’s way too late for what-ifs. Right?

Even as the boys try to shake off the past, they keep running into each other in the present. Is this the universe trying to tell them there’s a do-over in their future?

I haven’t read What If It’s Us but this novel gave me a good idea what had happened to Ben and Arthur in the first book, from how they met to how they parted ways and why, so this can be read perfectly as a standalone.

Ben and Arthur hadn’t seen each other in two years but the minute they’re back in the same city it seems like the universe draws them and their thoughts back together. It’s not long before they were playing with fire but they both act like they don’t know it, as if it’s completely normal to hang out all the time with your ex and to text each other non-stop while you have a new partner. I was trying very hard not to judge them and to go with the feeling pushed upon me. I wasn’t itching for them to get back together at all, especially since Arthur is together with the incredibly sweet Mikey, and Ben is in the stages of officially becoming Mario’s boyfriend but I just hoped if push came to shove they would do the right thing in the end.

I’ve written two whole pages of notes on this novel but I have a feeling that I still don’t know what to say about it. I love sweet romance stories but this is not my favourite type of romance novel because I hate for people to get hurt in the process and there was definitely a love triangle vibe and while nothing really happened I felt there was some emotional cheating going on which is probably even worse.

They were both so hung up on the past throughout the novel and how they felt then that they transposed it to the present but you’re not the same people any more after two years and I didn’t feel they were very mature. OK they didn’t act like hormonal teenagers jumping in bed with each other but I did miss some reflection about their situation. There was so much jealousy going round that it made me cringe. I wanted to shout stop and think what you’re doing you guys. The side characters were great and one of their friends, Dylan, was quite a force of nature. He expresses his love for Ben at every opportunity and I found this strange at first (I wondered if he was gay too) but I started to really enjoy his witty one-liners. He brought the fun into this novel.

There’s some will they-won’t they going on but you just can’t ignore the direction the authors are steering to. After all the pining going on I was happy I finally got to this point. I’m not entirely sure I’m in the right demographic category for this novel as I think it’ll be better received by a much younger group of readers. I never fell fully in love with either Ben or Arthur because they both made some questionable decisions but even though I wasn’t their biggest fan I am happy with the way it ended.

I bought a paperback copy of this novel. This is my honest opinion.

All Your Twisted Secrets by Diana Urban #BookReview

Welcome to dinner, and again, congratulations on being selected. Now you must do the selecting.

What do the queen bee, star athlete, valedictorian, stoner, loner, and music geek all have in common? They were all invited to a scholarship dinner, only to discover it’s a trap. Someone has locked them into a room with a bomb, a syringe filled with poison, and a note saying they have an hour to pick someone to kill … or else everyone dies.

Amber Prescott is determined to get her classmates and herself out of the room alive, but that might be easier said than done. No one knows how they’re all connected or who would want them dead. As they retrace the events over the past year that might have triggered their captor’s ultimatum, it becomes clear that everyone is hiding something. And with the clock ticking down, confusion turns into fear, and fear morphs into panic as they race to answer the biggest question: Who will they choose to die?

All Your Twisted Secrets is a slick YA mystery thriller that I decided to read when I learned Urban’s third novel Lying in the Deep (another novel with a locked room setting on a cruise ship), is going to be released in 2023. I’m forever trying to catch up with my tbr pile and I’m so happy I finally took the plunge with her debut. I had a good feeling about this novel and I was right, it made me a happy reader.

Amber finds herself locked up with 5 other teenagers in what she thinks is a dinner that could earn her a scholarship for the school of her dreams. Also present are her boyfriend Robbie, a boy she used to be friends with Diego, Priya who she has fallen out with over her friendship with Sasha, Sasha her newest friend and the one who holds Amber’s future in her hands, and Scott who she doesn’t know very well but who’s rumored to be the school’s drug dealer. In the room with them is a ticking time bomb and a syringe with poison so they have to decide… to kill or be killed. Tick tock!

In alternating chapters there’s on the one hand the panic setting in and heated discussions about who they are going to sacrifice for the group and why, and flashbacks to the past school year where the history between the different characters was explored. The present shows that there’s always a lot more to be discovered when you scratch that surface and so secrets and truths are revealed that consequently have an impact on the group dynamics.

Yes this novel reminded me in a way of One of Us Is Lying by Karen M. McManus and they have every right to be named in the same sentence. Maybe I rated that other novel a little higher because I had no idea how that was going to end and I sort of knew here, even though I had some reservations because the threat seemed more than real.. and if they didn’t die from a bomb or poison, it would probably be from the heat in the room or from killing each other in some other way. Even though I knew some of it, All Your Twisted Secrets still had a few more twists up its sleeve that I couldn’t have predicted and that all made up for it. The secrets really intensified towards the end and the last one was definitely the worst. I couldn’t stand one of the characters after this reveal!

I thoroughly enjoyed reading All Your Twisted Secrets, it was an addictive novel that made me want to read one more chapter every time I thought of putting it down for the night. I found myself a new author and I can’t wait to read her next novel!

I bought an ecopy of this novel. This is my honest opinion.

The Names They Gave Us by Emery Lord #BookReview

When it all falls apart, who can you believe in?

Everything is going right for Lucy Hansson, until her mom’s cancer reappears. Just like that, Lucy breaks with all the constants in her life: her do-good boyfriend, her steady faith, even her longtime summer church camp job.

Instead, Lucy lands at a camp for kids who have been through tough times. As a counselor, Lucy is in over her head and longs to be with her parents across the lake. But that’s before she gets to know her coworkers, who are as loving and unafraid as she so desperately wants to be.

It’s not just new friends that Lucy discovers at camp—more than one old secret is revealed along the way. In fact, maybe there’s much more to her family and her faith than Lucy ever realized.

I bought a copy of The Names They Gave Us in 2017. The cover sparkles so beautifully in the sunlight so that’s one of the reasons why I couldn’t resist, as well as for the glowing reviews I read at the time. But as the story goes so often, I lost sight of it until I recently held it in my hands again when I was looking for something emotional and charming to read.

After reading a few pages I did wonder if I would be able to fully enjoy this novel because I discovered right away that Lucy, the main character, is the daughter of a pastor and a very religious girl. She takes her faith pretty serious and at the start of the novel she’s struggling a bit with it after she finds out her mother is diagnosed with cancer for a second time. I don’t have anything against her faith but I was a bit afraid that I wouldn’t be able to build a connection with her. I needn’t have worried because Lucy was easy to sympathise with after all and the religious context doesn’t take over the story. As the novel progresses she becomes a lot more worldly and in the end her belief is integrated into a message of a more general nature.

Upon her mother’s request Lucy’s not going to church camp with her parents like she does every year but she’s filling in for someone at the Daybreak Camp on the other side of the lake. In Lucy’s opinion that is a ‘hippie camp’ but she can’t possibly say no to her mother when she’s just been diagnosed with cancer.

If there’s one thing I can say is that her stay at Daybreak Camp is a real eye-opener for this girl who lived such a sheltered life. This is a camp for troubled teens (where Lucy is responsible for a bunch of 8 and 9 year olds) but the camp leaders also come with their own baggage. This novel tackled several difficult topics, with loss and identity just to name some, but it never felt too heavy on me and there were lots of beautiful and fun moments too. It’s really not a sad book! The attraction to Henry was cute as well but I wouldn’t call this a romance novel, the focus fell more on the development of Lucy’s friendships and it definitely shows in the end how important they’ve all become for her.

‘What is a group of friends? A relief, a scaffolding, a safety net,…’

The camp and the people in it changed Lucy and she grew tons in this transformative novel. The Names They Gave Us refers to the labels the kids in Daybreak Camp get – even from Lucy before she arrived – but they are not just a group anymore, they are individuals and their personalities and voices touch Lucy and touched me as a reader as well. This novel holds a torch for more acceptance and understanding and delivers the message perfectly, without it being too much of a lesson but simply by showing some wonderful people and how they deal with things that life threw at them.

I enjoyed this novel more than I expected when I first started it so absolutely don’t let the religious background scare you off to read this one! I had a warm feeling when I finished reading it.

I bought a paperback copy of this novel at a local bookstore. This is my honest opinion.

You’ll Be The Death of Me by Karen McManus #BookReview

Ivy, Mateo and Cal used to be close – best friends back in middle school.

Now all they have in common is a bad day. So for old time’s sake they skip school together – one last time.

But when the trio spot Brian ‘Boney’ Mahoney ditching class too, they follow him – right into a murder scene.

They all have a connection to the victim. And they’re ALL hiding something.

When their day of freedom turns deadly, it’s only a matter of time before the truth comes out . . .

/

I absolutely loved the previous novel The Cousins so much that I pre-ordered You’ll Be The Death of Me and when it arrived I was even more excited to read it because it had beautiful deep purple page edges and a gleaming title on the cover (if you want to see check my Instagram page).

I truly love these multiple character novels. Not always but when Karen McManus writes them you will never ever hear me complaining. Has she written a novel yet with only one main character and one POV? Unless I’m mistaken I don’t think so but I don’t want her to change that, somehow she just always makes it work. The three main characters of this novel are all Carlton High students, a runner-up for class president (Ivy), her old high-school crush (Mateo), and the one with two dads but no friends (Cal). They are skipping school together because for various reasons they all need it that day and before you know it they stumble upon a dead body. They flee the scene when the police comes rolling in but when they hear one of them was spotted at the scene they have no choice but to find out who the killer is themselves.

With combined efforts they make good headway into finding out who killed their classmate. To succeed in finding the killer they do have to share the secrets they hold close at heart though. The first surprise is already the fact that Cal knows the person who owns that studio where their classmate was killed better than the others thought. What is it they say about still waters? Along the way the others reveal their own secrets too and it means that even more people will get involved in this tangled mess and might be very well be in danger. The only way out of this is to find out who the killer is before the killer finds them.

This is another solid Young Adult novel with likeable and interesting characters, and a real surprise ending. I knew who the culprit wasn’t but I actually didn’t find out the identity of the killer. I know I should have, but I didn’t and I can’t believe I missed it, but then maybe I was too entertained by the shenanigans of this wonderful trio.

I bought a paper copy of this novel. This is my honest opinion.

The Inheritance Games (Book #1 of 3) and The Hawthorne Legacy (Book #2 of 3) by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

She came from nothing.
Avery has a plan: keep her head down, work hard for a better future.
Then an eccentric billionaire dies, leaving her almost his entire fortune. And no one, least of all Avery, knows why.

They had everything.
Now she must move into the mansion she’s inherited.
It’s filled with secrets and codes, and the old man’s surviving relatives – a family hell-bent on discovering why Avery got ‘their’ money.

Now there’s only one rule: winner takes all.
Soon she is caught in a deadly game that everyone in this strange family is playing.
But just how far will they go to keep their fortune?

 

I don’t read a lot of Young Adult novels but when I do I seem to pick the right ones. The Inheritance Games is a brilliant start of a trilogy. Avery Grambs is a very clever girl, I knew that off the bat, but exactly how clever I had yet to fully discover. 

One day she is invited to the reading of a will of a man she never even heard of and it turns out that she stands to inherit his entire fortune. The only catch is that she has to live at Hawthorne Mansion for a year which wouldn’t be so bad if his other relatives, who didn’t inherit what they feel was coming to them, didn’t live there too. Not a great way to feel very welcome is it? Tobias Hawthorne also leaves each grandchild and Avery a letter, not that Avery’s is very telling but it is the start of her search to answer the question ‘why was she in his will when she didn’t even know him?’

The clues were well thought out and very cleverly constructed. Lots of the names in this novel for example have a special and deeper meaning attached to them, but the key is to know where to look then. I loved how Avery made the right connections and went to the right places to discover yet another clue that would bring her a small step closer to finding out why she was the chosen one. Avery isn’t the only one trying to figure it out though. The four grandsons of Tobias were ‘trained’ by Tobias as he challenged them on a regular basis so this game-mode is in their blood and of course they also want to find answers. The four boys who are working towards the same goal are laid-back ‘cowboy’ Nate, confident but closed off Gray, thrill-seeking charmer Nate, and nerdy cookie lover Xander Hawthorne. Allegiances are made quite soon with Avery but is it not too good to be true, is she a friend or a pawn?

While all this terrific sleuthing is progressing Avery can’t help to let her eye fall on two of the Hawthorne Boys. That’s right not one but two and this makes this novel extra special. There’s a lot of chemistry and the electric attraction whenever Avery finds herself alone (and in danger) with one of them made my heart do little jumps of joy. I know a lot of readers don’t enjoy love triangles but it was so good! It was killing me that she didn’t know who to choose. If you read the novel you want to make your own choice of course so this novel will create a division in teams! I doubt she’ll follow my choice though, I have a feeling it will be the other boy.

The novel has short chapters that are of no help if you don’t want to be reading all night. Otherwise said, it was terribly addictive and the way the novel ended, with another big question waiting to be solved, made me want to continue right away with The Hawthorne Legacy!

I’ve read a few novels in this particular genre (I listened to The Christmas Murder Game and before that I read Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts,…) but The Inheritance Games is by far the best novel in this clue-solving genre I read up until now. 

The Inheritance Games ended with a bombshell, and now heiress Avery Grambs has to pick up the pieces and find the man who might hold the answers to all of her questions – including why Tobias Hawthorne left his entire fortune to Avery, a virtual stranger, rather than to his own daughters or grandsons.

As the mystery grows and the plot thickens, Grayson and Jameson, the enigmatic and magnetic Hawthorne grandsons, continue to pull Avery in different directions. And there are threats lurking around every corner, as adversaries emerge who will stop at nothing to see Avery out of the picture – by any means necessary.

/

Could it be any better? Well yes it can! The Hawthorne Legacy is even better than the first and that one was already amazing. I’m so happy to hear that the series is going into production for tv! 

Avery Kylie Grambs is back and how! This one is all about exploring her past. Her mother – even though not a Hawthorne – also enjoyed playing games with her and one of their favourite games was ‘I have a secret’. Avery’s secrets as a young girl were not really worth to remember but her mother used to say she had an exciting secret about the day Avery was born… She never told her more than that but now Avery has a lead in her hands that could mean it’s the key to that secret.

The story is complex and filled with twists and turns. In the end we finally know why Avery was chosen and a lot more about her own past (and her mother’s) will have become clear. 

The chemistry with both boys was zinging in this novel again and while I was a bit cautious about one of them in the first novel because of some (game) player vibes, he seemed much more sincere and caring so the playing field was much more leveled out. If you ask me which team I’m on then all I can say is that I’m on the other team, so I am hoping there’s still some temptation in the third novel to keep it as interesting as before. 

You really need to read the series in order to be on board at the start of this novel but I’m sure you won’t regret that you need to read more than one of these novels. The last installment of the series, The Final Gambit is to be released in August 2022 and I can’t wait to dive in and see what new game she and the boys will embark on.

I bought an ecopy of this novel. This is my honest opinion.

As Good As Dead by Holly Jackson (A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder #3) #BookReview

Pip Fitz-Amobi is haunted by the way her last investigation ended. Soon she’ll be leaving for Cambridge University but then another case finds her . . . and this time it’s all about Pip.

Pip is used to online death threats, but there’s one that catches her eye, someone who keeps asking: who will look for you when you’re the one who disappears? And it’s not just online. Pip has a stalker who knows where she lives. The police refuse to act and then Pip finds connections between her stalker and a local serial killer. The killer has been in prison for six years, but Pip suspects that the wrong man is behind bars. As the deadly game plays out, Pip realises that everything in Little Kilton is finally coming full circle. If Pip doesn’t find the answers, this time she will be the one who disappears . . .

The highly-anticipated finale to the A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder series, the instant bestsellers that read like your favorite true crime podcast or show. By the end of this mystery series, you’ll never think of good girls the same way again…

As Good As Dead is the third novel of a trilogy, with A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder (my review) and Good Girl, Bad Blood (my review) preceding this one. I read the first two novels so of course I had to find out how everything was going to end for Pip Fitz-Amobi. I wouldn’t recommend reading this last novel as a standalone because there were a lot of references to both of the previous novels. That being said, I read the first one quite some time ago and it was not so easy to remember everything that had happened to all the characters of the town for me either so I struggled a little understanding why Pip was feeling so much animosity towards some of them.

I enjoyed the majority of the story of As Good As Dead, but it wasn’t love from the first page so it really me had to win me over. First, the second novel did end quite traumatically for Pip but I wasn’t a fan of Pip’s paranoid thoughts (PTSD if you want) and the manifestation of that fact with Pip imagining seeing blood on her hands quite a few times. It’s perhaps possible but I’m still not a fan. Secondly, the novel started slow although there’s an indisputable threat directed at Pip that is designed to keep the reader guessing early on and tension was building with each new message she discovers closer and closer to home. I enjoyed the clever way someone is trying to frighten her and yet I still felt that the plot took its time getting the story to where it should be, especially because there’s a major shifting of gears with one pivotal scene kicking the novel up a notch or ten and then never letting go again.

This pivotal scene and everything that happened after shows a Pip at the top of her game. I loved everything that came after that. I hadn’t seen her like this before, so brilliant, so controlling, so impressive. Her skills and all the knowledge she has acquired while working on her podcasts, she has to put them all into practice. I learned a few new things about death bodies too as she includes a report on how pathologists use rigor mortis, livor mortis and algor mortis to determine the time of someone’s death. I found all of this very interesting and I’m sure I won’t forget about it soon.

The second half of the novel was very addictive and I had to know if Pip was going to succeed. Sidekick Ravi was absent from the second novel but is back in As Good As Dead to take his place next to Pip and their connection, the support he gives her is wonderful. They are the bestest team!

The author promised a thrilling novel and she kept her promise, I loved the direction she took with this novel. I wasn’t expecting Pip to surprise me so much after her ‘weak’ start but she’s really coming through and this third novel is a wonderful conclusion to the series. It certainly ends on a high for me! And that last line.. I was sooo happy with it!

I bought a paperback copy of this novel. This is my honest opinion.

A Thousand Boy Kisses by Tillie Cole #BookReview

When seventeen-year-old Rune Kristiansen returns from his native Norway to the sleepy town of Blossom Grove, Georgia, where he befriended Poppy Litchfield as a child, he has just one thing on his mind. Why did the girl who was one half of his soul, who promised to wait faithfully for his return, cut him off without a word of explanation?

Rune’s heart was broken two years ago when Poppy fell silent. When he discovers the truth, he finds that the greatest heartache is yet to come.

I bought A Thousand Boy Kisses – a young adult romance novel – years ago when I saw how many 5 star ratings it was receiving on Goodreads. The novel’s been published in 2016 but still has an average rating of 4.23 so that says a lot about how much love this novel is receiving.

I’m a fan of young romance because it’s sweet, innocent and perfect and I thought I’d never be able to get enough of it but the romance in the first part of the novel was sooo cheesy, I was really getting an overdose. It didn’t help that Poppy receives a jar from her grandmother to collect a thousand kisses in her entire life that make her heart burst, kisses that make her feel special, and Rune takes it upon himself to fill this whole jar by himself. I never thought I’d say this but the soaring hearts were there all the time and even I felt it was a bit too much. That said, it didn’t make me feel very happy that Rune and his Poppymin (My Poppy in Norvegian) were going to be separated because by then I certainly saw them as inseparable.

Their goodbyes were painful but what was at least as painful was the fact that all communications between them come to a stop, although they promised each other so much. I didn’t know the reasons behind Poppy’s decision to cut Rune out of her life but it was hard to understand when she loved him so much before.

Rune, the long haired Viking with blond hair and blue eyes that Poppy had fallen in love with returns but nothing is as it once was. Rune has changed so much from the sweet boy I came to know. They can’t pick up where they left off, and all I wanted was for them to reconnect in some way. My heart broke for them – for the love lost between them – but soon after it broke even a little more. I thought this was going to be a light, sweet teen romance but the emotions I felt ran deeper than expected. In the end I believed very strongly that Rune and Poppy were soul mates, and their love ‘as special as special can be’. I dare you to keep it dry reading A Thousand Boy Kisses.

The start was a little rocky but the ending was so beautiful and also full of love. It is definitely an emotional novel and it won’t leave you unfazed!

I bought an ecopy of this novel. This is my honest opinion.